Chapter 10: Overcoming Nightmares

What Are Nightmares?

I began to try to recognize my dreams as products of my
mind, even as I dreamed them. The breakthrough came one night
soon after a nightmare. I decided I could not live fully
while I let my fears roam about on their own power, so to
speak. I entered the dream state determined not to yield. I
had read somewhere that a fear could only be dissipated by
friendliness and trust. Anger, threats, aggressiveness were
out. These reactions were actually fearful reactions. So I
made up my mind to be friendly.

The dream evolved, and I barely had time to remind myself
to smile before the nightmare began. This time it was an
almost childish nightmare, in which my collective fears took
the shape of a large, nebulous but very scary monster. I
quailed and almost turned tail, but by sheer will (I was
really scared) I stayed and let it approach. I said to myself
"it's my dream, and if I forget this, I'll have to go through
it again," and I smiled as sincerely as I could. What's more,
I spoke as calmly as I could, a big step since waking or
sleeping terror leaves me speechless. I said something like
"I'm not afraid. I want to be friends. You're welcome to my
dream!" and almost as soon as I said it, the monster became
friendly, delightedly so. I was ecstatic. Needless to say, I
awoke quickly, still saying "I did it!" (T.Z., Fresno,
California)

I know that I can change a frightening situation in a lucid
dream, so I don't let myself get scared or panic. I never run
away from things or persons in my dreams anymore. And the
strange thing is that in waking life I don't run away either,
anymore. I face things head on and don't drag situations out
forever. My lucid dreams have changed the way I look at life.
People think I've changed through the years, but the fact is
that this is the real me coming out. (V.F., Greensboro,
North Carolina)

Nightmares are terrifying dreams; dreams in which our worst
fears are brought to life in fully convincing detail.
Whatever horrors you personally believe to be the worst
things that could happen—these are the most likely subjects
of your nightmares. All people, in every age and culture have
suffered from these terrors of the night. People's
understanding of the origins of nightmares has varied as much
as their understanding of dreams. To some cultures,
nightmares were the true experiences of the soul as it
wandered another world as the body slept. To others, they
were the result of the visitation of demons. Indeed, the word
nightmare comes from the Anglo-Saxon mare, for goblin or
incubus. (An incubus is a demon who comes in the night to
steal the sexual favor of ladies, and has its female
counterpart, the succubus.)

In Western culture today, most people are content to say of
nightmares that they are "only dreams," meaning they are
imaginary and of no consequence. Thus, when a successful
business executive awakens with his heart pounding from a
dream of being pursued by zombies through the jungle, he is
grateful to be able to recite the comforting refrain, "Thank
God, it was only a dream," get a glass of water and return to
bed. However, when just a few minutes before the stinking
corpses with eyes like pits to hell were breathing down his
neck, the executive had no doubts about their reality. The
zombies may have been imaginary, but the terror was real. So,
to lightly dismiss the real terror of horrific dreams as
illusory seems like an error that leaves us with no choice
but to submit ourselves again and again to the greatest fear
we are likely to ever experience.

What gives nightmares their special terror? In dreams,
anything is possible. This limitlessness can be wonderful,
since it allows us to experience delights of fantasy and
pleasure unachievable in waking life. However, turn over the
stone, and anything you can imagine that you would not like
to experience, however unlikely in waking, can happen as
well.

In nightmares we are alone. The terrifying worlds we create
in our minds are populated with our fears. We may dream that
we are accompanied by friends, but if we doubt them they can
just as easily turn into fiends. If we run from an axe-
wielding maniac, he can find us no matter where we hide. If
we stab a devil with a knife, he may not even notice, or the
knife may turn to rubber. Our thoughts betray us; if we
think, I only hope he doesn't have a gun—lo! he has a gun.
It is no wonder we are grateful to return from nightmares to
the relative sanity and peace of the waking world.

Thus, it is understandable that people in the midst of
nightmares who realize they must be dreaming frequently
choose to wake up. However, if you become fully lucid in a
nightmare, you realize that the nightmare can't really hurt
you, and you don't need to "escape" it by awakening. You
remember that you are already safe in bed. It is better, as
we will discuss below, to face and overcome the terror while
remaining in the dream.

Nightmare Causes and Cures

Studies of frequencies of nightmares among adults show that
one third to one half of all adults experience occasional
nightmares. A study of college students found that almost
three-quarters of a group of 300 had nightmares at least once
a month. In another study, five percent of college freshmen
reported having nightmares at least once a week. [1] If this
rate applies to the general population, then we might find
that more than ten million Americans are plagued by wholly
realistic horrifying experiences every week!

Some factors that seem to contribute to nightmare frequency
are: illness (especially fever), stress (caused by situations
like the difficulties of adolescence, moving, hard times at
school or work), troubled relationships and traumatic events,
like being mugged or experiencing a serious earthquake.
Traumatic events can trigger a long lasting series of
recurrent nightmares.

Some drugs and medications can cause an increase in
nightmares. The reason for this is that many drugs suppress
REM sleep, producing a later effect of REM-rebound. If you go
to sleep drunk, you may sleep quite soundly, but dream
little, until five or six hours into sleep. Then, the
alcohol's effect has mostly worn off and your brain is
prepared to make up for the lost REM time. As a result, you
will dream more intensely than usual for the last few hours
of your sleep time. The intensity is reflected in the
emotionality of the dream, which often will be unpleasant.

There are a few drugs which seem to increase nightmares by
increasing the activity of some part of the REM system. Among
these are l-DOPA, used in the treatment of Parkinsonism, and
beta-blockers, used by people with some heart conditions.
Since research has shown that lucid dreams tend to occur
during periods of intense REM activity, [2] I believe that
drugs that cause nightmares may also facilitate lucid
dreaming. This is a topic I plan to research in years to
come. I think that whether an intense REM period leads to
dreams that are pleasantly exciting or terrifying depends on
the attitude of the dreamer.

Thus, it is to the dreamer's attitude that I think we should
look in seeking a treatment for nightmares. For example,
people rarely experience nightmares in the sleep laboratory,
because they have a feeling of being observed and cared for.
Likewise, children who awaken from nightmares and crawl into
bed with their parents feel safe from harm and thus are less
likely to have more bad dreams.

I believe the best place to deal with unpleasant dreams is in
their own context, in the dream world. We create our
nightmares out of the raw material of our own fears. Fears
are expectations—why would we fear something we thought
would never happen? Expectations affect our waking lives, but
even more so, they determine our dream lives. When in your
waking life, you walk down a dark street, you fear that
someone will threaten you. However, for some dark figure to
actually leap out at you with a knife depends on there really
being some knife-bearing thug hiding in an alley nearby
waiting for a victim. On the contrary, if you dream of
walking down a dark street, fearing attack, it is almost
inevitable that you will be attacked, because you can readily
imagine the desperate criminal waiting for you. But, if you
had not thought that the situation was dangerous, there would
be no thug, and no attack. Your only real enemy in dreams is
your own fear.

Most of us harbor some useless fears. Fear of speaking in
public is a common example. In most cases, no harm will
result from giving a speech, but this fact does not prevent
many people from being as frightened of public speaking as
they would be if faced by a life threatening situation.
Likewise, to be afraid in a dream, while understandable, is
unnecessary. Even when fear is useless, it is still quite
unpleasant, and can be debilitating. An obvious way to
improve our lives is to rid ourselves of unnecessary fear.
How is this done?

Research on behavior modification treatment for phobias shows
that it is not enough for a person to know intellectually
that the object of their fear is harmless. Snake phobics may
"know" perfectly well that garter snakes are harmless, but
they will still be afraid to pick one up. The way to learn to
overcome fear is to face it—to approach the fearsome object
or situation little by little. Each time you encounter the
feared thing without harm you learn by experience that it
cannot hurt you. This is the kind of approach we propose for
overcoming nightmares. Many anecdotes demonstrate that the
approach is effective, and can even be used by children.

None of our proposed treatments for nightmares require that
you interpret the symbolism of the unpleasant images. Much
fruitful work can be accomplished in dreams by working
directly with the images. Waking analysis (or interpretation
while in the dream) may help you understand the source of
your anxieties, but will not necessarily help you outgrow
them. For instance, consider again the fear of snakes. The
classical interpretation of snake phobia is that it is a
disguised anxiety about sex, especially regarding the male
member, and in fact most snake phobics are women. A much more
plausible biological explanation is that humans come into the
world prepared to easily learn to fear snakes, because
avoiding venomous snakes has obvious survival value. However,
providing this information doesn't cure the phobia. What does
help, as mentioned above, is for the phobic to slowly become
accustomed to dealing with snakes. Likewise, dealing directly
with dream fears, learning they cannot harm us, can help us
to overcome them.

The Uses of Anxiety

According to Freud, nightmares were the result of masochistic
wish-fulfillment. The basis of this curious notion was
Freud's unshakable conviction that every dream represented
the fulfillment of a wish. "I do not know why the dream
should not be as varied as thought during the waking
state..." [3] wrote Freud, tongue-in-cheek. For his own part,
he continued, "I should have nothing against it...There is
only a trifling obstacle in the way of this more convenient
conception of the dream; it does not happen to reflect
reality." If for Freud, every dream was nothing but the
fulfillment of a wish, the same thing must be true for
nightmares: the victims of nightmares must secretly wish to
be humiliated, tortured or persecuted.

I do not see every dream as necessarily the expression of a
wish; nor do I view nightmares as masochistic wish
fulfillment but rather as the result of maladaptive
reactions. The anxiety experienced in nightmares can be seen
as an indication of the failure of the dreamer to respond
effectively to the dream situation.

Anxiety arises when we encounter a fear-provoking situation
against which our habitual patterns of behavior are useless.
People who experience anxiety dreams need a new approach for
coping with the situations represented in their dreams. This
may not be easy to find if the dream results from unresolved
conflicts which the dreamer does not want to face in waking
life. In severe cases, it may be difficult to treat the
nightmare without treating the personality that gave rise to
it. But I believe that this qualification applies mainly to
chronically maladjusted personalities. [4] For relatively
normal people whose nightmares are not the result of serious
personality problems, lucid dreams can be extremely helpful.
However, if you are to benefit from our method of overcoming
nightmares, you must be willing to take responsibility for
your experiences in general and in particular, for your
dreams.

To illustrate how lucidity can help you work through anxiety-
provoking situations, consider the following analogy. The
non-lucid dreamer is like a small child who is terrified of
the dark; the child really believes there are monsters there.
The lucid dreamer would perhaps be like an older child—still
afraid of the dark—yet no longer believing that there are
really monsters out there; this child might be afraid, but
would know that there was nothing to be afraid of, and could
master the fear.

Anxiety is a state of uneasiness composed of two emotions:
fear and uncertainty. It results from the simultaneous
occurrence of two conditions: one is fear in regard to some
(possibly ill-defined) situation we find threatening; the
other is an uncertainty about how to avoid an unfavorable
outcome. In other words, we experience anxiety when we are
afraid of something, and have nothing in our behavioral
repertoire that will help us overcome or evade it. Anxiety
may serve a biological function: it prompts us to scan our
situations more carefully and re-evaluate possible courses of
action—in search of an overlooked solution to the situation-
-in short, to become more conscious. [5]

When we experience anxiety in our dreams, the most adaptive
response would be to become lucid and face the situation in a
creative manner. In fact, anxiety does seem to spontaneously
result in lucidity fairly frequently (for example, in a
quarter of the 62 lucid dreams I had in the first year of my
records). [6] It may even be the case that anxiety in dreams
would always lead to lucidity if we were instructed about
this possibility. With practice, dream anxiety can become a
reliable dreamsign, no more dangerous than a scarecrow,
pointing to where you need to do some repair work. There is
no cause for fear in dreams....

Facing the Nightmare

In the midst of a lucid dream I saw a series of gray-black
pipes. Out of the largest pipe emerged a black widow about
the size of a cat. As I watched this black widow, it grew
larger and larger. However, as it was growing I was not the
least bit afraid and I thought to myself 'I am not afraid'
and I made the black widow vanish. I was very proud of my
achievement since I had always been terrified of black
widows. The earliest nightmare I can remember was about a
large black widow which I couldn't escape. For me, black
widows were a very strong symbol of fear itself. (J.W.,
Sacramento, California)

About twenty years ago I realized that the monster in my
nightmares couldn't really hurt me. I told it I wasn't afraid
any more and it changed into a toothless, whimpering witch
and went away. Yesterday I read the article about your work
in Parade magazine, and last night the monster returned. This
time, knowing I was dreaming, I enjoyed the intricacy of
detail, changing from one revolting, menacing shape to
another, second by second. I remembered the black kitten you
had described from one of your dreams and I told it to smile.
I was stunned as I watched the bulging eyes recede, the
snarling mouth try to relax into a smile. It didn't know how.
The shark teeth changed into horse teeth and it beamed. It
was the silliest damn thing I ever saw, and I woke up
laughing my head off. I feel like a 67 year old kid with a
new toy. (L.R., Jacksonville Beach, Florida)

"There is no cause for fear," wrote Sufi teacher Jalaludin
Rumi seven centuries ago: "It is imagination, blocking you as
a wooden bolt holds the door. Burn that bar...." [7] Fear of
the unknown is worse than fear of the known, and this seems
nowhere more true than in dreams. Thus, one of the most
adaptive responses to an unpleasant dream situation is to
face it, as can be seen in the following account of a series
of nightmares experienced by the 19th Century lucid dream
pioneer, the Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys:

I wasn't aware I was dreaming, and I thought I was being
pursued by frightful monsters. I was fleeing through an
endless series of interconnecting rooms, always experiencing
difficulty in opening the dividing doors and closing them
behind me, only to hear them opened again by my hideous
pursuers, who uttered terrible cries as they came after me. I
felt they were gaining on me. I awoke with a start, bathed in
sweat.

...I was all the more affected on waking because, when
this particular dream came upon me, I always lacked, through
some curious twist of fate, that consciousness of my state
that I so often had during my dreams. One night, however,
when the dream returned for the fourth time, at the moment my
persecutors were about to renew their pursuit, a feeling of
the truth of the situation was suddenly awakened in my mind;
and the desire to combat these illusions gave me the strength
to overcome my instinctive terror. Instead of fleeing, and by
what must indeed under the circumstances have been an effort
of will, I leaned against the wall and resolved to
contemplate with the closest attention the phantoms that I
had so far only glimpsed rather than seen. The initial shock
was, I confess, strong enough; such is the difficulty that
the mind has in defending itself against an illusion that it
fears. I fixed my eyes on my principal attacker, who somewhat
resembled the grinning, bristling demons which are sculpted
in cathedral porticos, and as the desire to observe gained
the upper hand over my emotions, I saw the following: the
fantastic monster had arrived within several feet of me,
whistling and cavorting in a manner which, once it had ceased
to frighten me, appeared comic. I noted the claws on one of
its paws, of which there were seven, very clearly outlined.
The hairs of its eyebrows, a wound it appeared to have on its
shoulder and innumerable other details combined in a picture
of the greatest precision—one of the clearest visions I have
had. Was it the memory of some Gothic bas-relief? In any
case, my imagination added both movement and color. The
attention I had concentrated on this figure had caused its
companions to disappear as if by magic. The figure itself
seemed to slow down in its movements, lose its clarity and
take on a wooly appearance, until it changed into a kind of
floating bundle of rags, similar to the faded costumes that
serve as a sign to shops selling disguises at carnival time.
Several insignificant images appeared in succession, and then
I awoke. [8]

That seemed to be the end of the Marquis' nightmares. Tholey
has also reported that when the dream ego looks courageously
and openly at hostile dream figures, their appearance often
becomes less threatening. [9] On the other hand, when one
attempts to make a dream figure disappear, it may become more
threatening, as in the following case of Sparrow's:

I am standing in the hallway outside my room. It is night
and hence dark where I stand. Dad comes in the front door. I
tell him that I am there so as not to frighten him or provoke
an attack. I am afraid for no apparent reason.

I look outside through the door and see a dark figure
which appears to be a large animal. I point at it in fear.
The animal, which is a huge black panther, comes through the
doorway. I reach out to it with both hands, extremely afraid.
Placing my hands on its head, I say, "You're only a dream."
But I am half pleading in my statement and cannot dispel my
fear.

I pray for Jesus' presence and protection. But the fear is
still with me as I awaken. [10]

Here the dreamer uses his lucidity to try to make his
frightful image disappear. There is little difference between
this and running from dream monsters. If, upon reflection,
Sparrow had recognized that a dream panther could not hurt
him, the thought alone should have dissipated his anxiety.
Fear is your worst enemy in dreams; if you allow it to
persist it will grow stronger and your self-confidence will
diminish.

However, many novice lucid dreamers may at first tend to use
their new powers to find more clever ways to escape their
fears. This is because of our natural tendency to continue in
our current frame of mind. If, in a dream in which you are
fleeing from harm, you realize you are dreaming, you will
still tend to continue escaping, even though you should now
know that there is nothing to flee from. During the first six
months of my personal record of lucid dreaming, I
occasionally suffered from this sort of mental inertia until
the following dream inspired a permanent change in my lucid
dreaming behavior:

I was escaping down the side of a skyscraper, climbing like a
lizard. It occurred to me that I could better escape by
flying away, and as I did so, I realized that I was dreaming.
By the time I reached the ground, the dream and my lucidity
faded. The next thing I knew I was sitting in the audience of
a lecture hall, privileged to be hearing Idries Shah (an
eminent Sufi teacher) comment on my dream. "It was good that
Stephen realized he was dreaming and could fly," Shah
observed with a bemused tone, "but unfortunate that he didn't
see that since it was a dream, there was no need to escape."

I would have had to be deaf not to get the message. After
this dream lecture, I resolved to never use my lucidity to
avoid unpleasant situations. But, I wasn't going to be
content to passively avoid conflicts by doing nothing. I made
a firm resolution regarding my lucid dreaming behavior:
anytime I realized I was dreaming, I was required to ask
myself the following two questions: 1) Am I now or have I
been running away from anything in the dream? 2) Is there now
or has there been any conflict in the dream? If the answer
was yes to either, then I was honorbound to do everything I
could to face whatever I was avoiding and to resolve any
conflict. I have easily remembered this principle in almost
every subsequent lucid dream and have attempted to resolve
conflicts and face my fears whenever it was called for.

"Escaping" from a nightmare by awakening only suppresses your
conscious awareness of the anxiety-provoking imagery. You may
feel a certain relief, but like the prisoner who digs through
his prison wall and finds himself in the cell next door, you
haven't really escaped. Moreover, aware of it or not, you are
left with an unresolved conflict which will doubtless come
back to haunt you some other night. In addition, you may have
an unpleasant and unhealthy emotional state with which to
start your day.

If, on the other hand, you choose to stay in the nightmare
rather than waking from it, you can resolve the conflict in a
way that brings you increased self-confidence and improved
mental health. Then when you wake up you will feel that you
have freed some extra energy with which to begin your day
with new confidence.

Lucid dreaming gives us the power to banish the terror of
nightmares and at the same time to strengthen our courage—if
we master our fear sufficiently to recognize our most
disturbing images as our own creations and face them.

Sleep Paralysis

My first experience of this terror of being awake but not
in control of my body was when I was young, sick with a
fever, and in my mother's bedroom. I saw a black shadow pass
the window, enter the room and try to take the covers off of
me. Inside I was screaming and frantic, outside I knew that
nothing was happening. I was dreadfully scared of people
coming in through that window, and this somehow helped me
realize that it was a black shadowy figure, not a person. I
fought it off and woke up. In the past year I have had a
repeat of that dream complete with the feeling of flesh on my
shoulder—I was terrified. Also recently, in another such
dream, something awful was trying to kill me. I remembered
something my husband had told me he'd done in the same
situation when he was dreaming, so I turned and faced the
"thing," and essentially challenged it to go ahead and kill
me asserting that I was not afraid. I felt strongly that it
could not hurt me if I put out my strength and began
summoning up an image of goodness and purity (God) and
praying. The "thing" was defeated and I woke up feeling very
good. (K.S., Etobicoke, Ontario)

The experience of sleep paralysis can be terrifying, as in
the example above. In a typical case, a person awakens, but
then finds he cannot move. It may feel like a great weight is
holding him down and making it difficult to breath.
Hallucinations may appear, often loud buzzing noises,
vibrations in the body, or people and threatening figures
nearby. The dreamer may feel things touch his body, body
distortions, or "electricity" running around inside him. As
the experience progresses, the surroundings may begin to
change, or the person may feel he is leaving his body—either
by floating up or by sinking through the bed. Quite often,
the dreamer knows the experience is a dream, but finds it
very difficult to awaken.

The probable cause of sleep paralysis is that the mind
awakens, but the body remains in the paralysis state of REM
sleep. At first, the dreamer actually perceives the
environment around him, but as the REM process takes over
again, strange things begin to occur. Anxiety seems to be a
natural concomitant of this physiological condition, and it
is worsened by the dreamer's feeling that he is awake, his
belief that these peculiar things are really happening, and
the sensation of being unable to move. If the dreamer goes
more completely into REM sleep, he loses the awareness of his
body which causes him to feel paralyzed. At this point, he
may experience the sensation of "leaving his body," as his
mental body image is freed from the constraints of perceptual
input from his actual body. [11]

Sleep paralysis experiences are likely to be the cause of
some of the strangest night phenomena, such as visitations by
demons, incubi, and succubi, and out-of-body experiences.
They don't need to be terrifying, however, if you reflect as
they are happening that they are dreams and that none of the
bizarre events are dangerous. People in these states commonly
try to cry out for others to awaken them, or to force
themselves to move in order to awaken. This usually only
makes matters worse, however, since it increases their
feelings of anxiety. Anxiety itself may help to perpetuate
the condition. A better approach is to 1) remember it is a
dream and therefore harmless, and 2) relax, and go with the
experience. Adopt an attitude of intrepid curiosity. Dreams
that proceed from paralysis experiences are often quite
intense and wonderful.

Practicum for Overcoming Nightmares

I was on top of a mountain at the edge of a cliff. I seemed
to be a prisoner of two guys who had a dog and a lion with
them. I felt they were going to throw me off the cliff, so I
rushed them and knocked the two guys off the cliff along with
the lion but I went over too, into the water. I was alright
and now my hands were free. I swam to the side and started to
climb up the mountain but the lion was in front of me and he
was angry because I pushed him into the water. He would not
let me up so I tried to scare him by throwing water and rocks
at him. He just got angrier. He started to get closer to me
and I moved back into the water. He started to roar, and
jumped in after me, but I jumped to the rocks. Now I was on
my back and knew I couldn't get away, so I faced him, and as
he attacked I said, "Come on." I put my hands out and
suddenly I realized I was dreaming. In mid-attack his
expression changed from rage to friendly and playful. When he
landed on me I hugged him and we play wrestled and rolled. I
kissed him and he licked me. I felt really great that I was
lucid and playing with a lion. Then he rolled over and turned
into a naked black woman. She was beautiful with large
nipples on her breasts. I started to play with her, and was
getting excited, but I had this feeling that getting back to
the top of the cliff was more important, so I said, let's go
back. As we started I woke up. (D.T., Lindenwold, New
Jersey)

I had a fear of death, but cured it through a lucid dream.
I was walking through a Hell-like environment and realized
that this could not be, as I was asleep in my bed. At that
instant, I was stabbed in the back. 'Feeling' the pain, I
decided to see what 'dying' would be like. I felt myself in a
catatonic state. I willed my dream 'soul' to depart from my
dream 'body.' It was a strange feeling to see my dream 'body'
beneath me. I also had a sense of all-pervading peace and
calm. I said to myself that if this is what dying is like, it
isn't so bad. From that day forward, I have had no fear of
dying. I even remain calm in life-threatening situations.
(K.D., Lauderhill, Florida)

Anyone who ever suffers from nightmares can benefit from
using lucidity as a response to severe anxiety in dreams.
Readers who have nightmares frequently will be able to put
the advice we provide here to use right away. But others
would do well to study these materials and have them ready in
mind for the next time they find themselves in a frightening
dream.

A few differing approaches to dealing with unpleasant dream
experiences appear in the literature. They can all be
assisted by lucidity, because when lucid we are sure of our
context (dreaming) and know that waking world rules don't
apply. One of the first proposed systems for overcoming
nightmares was that attributed to the Senoi people of
Malaysia by Kilton Stewart in his paper "Dream Theory in
Malaya." [12] Patricia Garfield brought Stewart's ideas to
the public in her inspiring book Creative Dreaming. [13] The
basic principle of the Senoi system is to confront and
conquer danger. This means that if you encounter an attacker
or an uncooperative dream figure, you should aggressively
attack and subdue it. If necessary, you are advised to
destroy the figure, and thereby release a positive force.
Once you have subdued the dream figure, you must force it to
give you a valuable gift—something you can use in your
waking life. Another suggestion is that you enlist friendly
and cooperative dream characters to help you overcome the
threatening character.

People have reported positive, empowering results with the
"confront and conquer" approach. However, as Paul Tholey has
found, attacking unfriendly characters may not be the most
productive way to handle them. The reason for this will be
discussed in detail in Chapter 11, but in brief, the idea is
that hostile dream figures may represent aspects of our own
personalities that we wish to disown. If we try to crush the
symbolic appearances of these characteristics in dreams, we
may be symbolically rejecting and attempting to destroy parts
of ourselves.

Another idea associated with the Senoi is valuable to keep in
mind regarding nightmares. Falling is a very common theme in
anxiety dreams. The Senoi system proposes that when you dream
of falling, you shouldn't wake yourself up, but go with it,
relax and land gently. Think that you will land in a pleasant
and interesting place, especially one that offers you a
useful insight or experience. As a next step, it is suggested
that in future dreams when you are falling, you should try to
fly, and fly somewhere intriguing and worthwhile. In this
way, you can turn a frightening, negative experience into one
that is fun and useful.

Tholey, who has researched the efficacy of various attitudes
towards hostile dream characters, concludes that a
conciliatory approach is most likely to result in a positive
experience for the dreamer. [14] His conciliatory method is
based on the practice of engaging in dialogs with dream
characters (see exercise below). He found that when dreamers
tried to reconcile with hostile figures that the figures
often transformed from "lower order into higher order
creatures," meaning from beasts or mythological beings into
humans, and that these transformations "often allowed the
subjects to immediately understand the meaning of the dream."
Furthermore, conciliatory behavior towards threatening
figures would generally cause them to look and act in a more
friendly manner. For example, Tholey himself dreamt:

I became lucid, while being chased by a tiger, and wanted
to flee. I then pulled myself back together, stood my ground,
and asked, "Who are you?" The tiger was taken aback but
transformed into my father and answered, "I am your father
and will now tell you what you are to do!" In contrast to my
earlier dreams, I did not attempt to beat him but tried to
get involved in a dialogue with him. I told him that he could
not order me around. I rejected his threats and insults. On
the other hand, I had to admit that some of my father's
criticism was justified, and I decided to change my behavior
accordingly. At that moment my father became friendly, and we
shook hands. I asked him if he could help me, and he
encouraged me to go my own way alone. My father then seemed
to slip into my own body, and I remained alone in the
dream. [15]

To have a good dream dialog, you should treat the dream
figure as being your equal, as in the example. The following
questions may open up fruitful lines of dialog with dream
figures:

"Who are you?"
"Who am I?"
"Why are you here?"
"Why are you acting the way you are?"
"What do you have to tell me?"
"Why is such-and-such happening in this dream?"
"What do you think or feel about such and such?"
"What do you want from me? What do you want me to do?"
"What questions would you ask of me?"
"What do I most need to know?"
"Can you help me?"
"Can I help you?"

EXERCISE: DIALOGING WITH DREAM CHARACTERS

1. Practice imaginary dialogs in the waking state.
Choose a recent dream in which you had an unpleasant
encounter with a dream figure. Get a piece of paper and pen
to write down the conversation you imagine. Imagine yourself
talking to the dream character; visualize the character
before you. Begin a dialog by asking questions. You may
choose a question from the list above or substitute any
personally relevant question. Write down your questions, and
the responses you get from the character. Try not to let
critical thoughts interrupt the flow, such as "this is
silly," or "I'm just making this up," or "That's not true."
Listen, and interact. You can evaluate later. Terminate the
dialog when it runs out of energy or when you achieve a
useful resolution. Then evaluate the conversation and ask
yourself what you did right and what you would do differently
next time. Once you are successful with this, try the same
exercise on another dream.

2. Set your intention.
Set a goal for yourself that the next time you have a
disturbing encounter with a dream character you will become
lucid and engage the character in dialog.

3. Dialog with problem dream figures.
When you encounter anyone with whom you feel conflict, ask
yourself whether or not you are dreaming. If you find that
you are dreaming, continue as follows: Stay and face the
character, and begin a dialog with one of the opening
questions from the list below. Listen to the character's
responses, and try to address his, her, or its problems as
well as your own. See if you can come to an agreement or make
friends. Continue the dialog until you reach a comfortable
resolution. Then, be sure to awaken while you still remember
the conversation clearly, and write it down.

4. Evaluate the dialog.
Ask yourself if you achieved the best result you could. If
you feel you did not, think about how you could improve your
results next time. You could use Step 1 to relive the dialog
to attain a more satisfying result.

In contrast to the positive results of conciliatory dialog,
Tholey found that when dreamers attacked dream characters
either verbally or physically, the dream figures often
regressed in form, for instance from a mother, to a witch,
then to a beast. We might assume that the other characters in
our dream worlds are more helpful as friendly humans than as
subdued animals, so the aggressive approach may not be the
best choice most of the time.

I say most of the time, because in some instances it may not
be advisable to open yourself to a dream attacker. The
circumstances which might make this true are in cases of
dreams which replay real life events in which one was abused
by someone—say, a rapist or child molester. In such cases, a
more satisfying resolution may result from the Senoi approach
of overcoming, destroying, and transforming the dream
attacker. However, in many instances, Tholey's research has
shown that aggressive attacks on dream characters can result
in feelings of anxiety or guilt, and the subsequent emergence
of dream "avengers." So, I would advise avoiding such
behavior unless it truly seems to best option.

I have a few suggestions to add to these ideas for how to
resolve nightmare situations. One is an extension of the
"confront and conquer" approach. Though I cannot wholly
recommend conquering dream characters, the intention to
confront all danger in dreams is fully in accordance with my
conception of a constructive dream-life. Remember that
nothing can hurt you in dreams, and consider if there is any
reason why you should not allow yourself to experience the
things you are trying to avoid in the dream. An excellent
example of enduring the dreamed danger is provided by
Garfield:

I was in a subway like the London tube system. I came to an
escalator. The first three or four steps weren't going. I
figured I had to walk up. After I got up the first few steps,
I found that it was working. I looked up toward the top and
saw all this yellow machinery above the escalator. I realized
that if I kept on going, I would be smashed by the machinery.
I became frightened, and started to wake up. Then I said to
myself, "No, I have to keep on going. I have to face it.
Patty says I can't wake up." My heart began pounding and my
palms sweating as I was carried nearer and nearer. I said,
"This is bad for my heart," but I kept on going. Nothing
happened. Somehow I passed it and everything was all right.
[18]

In another case, a woman dreamt she had difficulty avoiding
being struck by cars as she crossed a busy street. As she had
an unusually intense fear of traffic in waking life, upon
becoming lucid, she decided to directly confront her fear and
leapt into the path of an oncoming pickup truck. She
described that she felt the truck pass through her and then
she, in an ethereal form, rose heavenwards, feeling elevated
and amused.

This "let it happen" to you approach may not be best when
dealing with dream characters, however. In Tholey's research,
"Defenseless behavior almost always led to unpleasant
experiences of fear or discouragement." [19] Hostile dream
figures would tend to grow in size and strength relative to
the dreamer. The reason for this may be that dream characters
often are projections of ourselves, and by giving in to their
attacks, we may be allowing untransformed negative energies
within us to overpower our better aspects.

Chapter 11 discusses this idea in greater depth and proposes
another method for placating hostile dream figures: You
simply open your heart and accept them as part of yourself.
This may not require any words at all, and can have an
astonishingly positive effect.

Prescriptions for Nightmares

The following is a list of some of the more common nightmare
themes, with suggested methods of transforming the dream to
achieve a positive outcome. Make yourself a goal that
whenever you next find yourself in a nightmare, you will
become lucid, and overcome your fear. If the nightmare
features one of the following themes, try the suggested
responses.

1. Theme: Being pursued
Response: Stop running. Turn to face the pursuer. This is in
itself may cause the pursuer to disappear or become harmless.
If not, try starting a conciliatory dialog with the character
or animal.

2. Theme: Being attacked
Response: Don't give in meekly to the attack or flee. Show
your readiness to defend yourself and then try to engage the
attacker in a conciliatory dialog. Alternatively, find
acceptance and love in yourself and extend this towards the
threatening figure (see Chapter 11).

3. Theme: Falling
Response: Relax and allow yourself to land. The "old wives'
tale" is false—you will not really die if you hit the
ground. Alternatively, you can transform falling into flying.

4. Theme: Paralysis
Response: When you feel trapped, stuck or paralyzed, relax.
Don't allow anxiety to overcome your rationality. Tell
yourself you are dreaming and the dream will soon end. Let
yourself go along with any images that appear or things that
happen to your body. None of it will hurt you. Adopt an
attitude of interest and curiosity about what happens.

5. Theme: Being unprepared for an examination or speech
Response: First of all, you don't need to continue with this
theme at all. You can leave the exam or lecture room.
However, you might enhance your self-confidence in such
situations by creatively answering the test questions or
giving a spontaneous talk on whatever topic suits you. Be
sure to enjoy yourself. When you wake up, you may want to ask
yourself whether you should actually prepare for a similar
situation.

6. Theme: Being naked in public
Response: Who cares in a dream? Have fun with the idea. Some
find being naked in a lucid dream erotically exciting. If you
wish, have everyone else in the dream remove their clothes.
Remember, modesty is a public convention, and dreams are
private experiences.

RECURRENT NIGHTMARES

After waking up from the nightmare, I would go back to
sleep while thinking of a point in the dream before it went
bad. I would go back to that point and re-dream the dream,
changing it, recreating it so that it would turn out well and
end up as a good dream. (J.G., Kirkland, Washington)

From a friend I received the advice that to just "stand
there" in a dream could change its course. At that time I was
having frequent terrifying dreams. I would wake up screaming
for help—thus ending the dream. And, of course, the
overtones of helpless fear carried over into the day. So
before I went to sleep I began to say to myself that whatever
happened in my dreams, I was simply going to stand there and
meet the danger and just see what the dream would do about
that.

An example of what happened is the elevator dream. I was
stuck in an elevator. It wouldn't go up or down and I
couldn't get out. Finally, I climbed out the top and while I
was on the roof of the elevator, it began to go up very
quickly and I would have been crushed against the top of the
elevator shaft. Instead of screaming for help, I simply
responded as an observer and recognizing that this was a
dream, I said to the dream that I was going to sit there on
the elevator. "Now, how will you handle that?" The elevator
stopped short of the top. No harm was done. Not only that,
the dream was no longer out of control. Until that time the
elevator dream had been recurring. It never returned. (V.
W., Lincoln, Nebraska)

Since I was three years old, twice a month, I have had
nightmares about tidal waves engulfing me; the details varied
but the feeling was always the same: terror and helplessness.
Until...in a half-awake state I determined to have a lucid
dream about diving into a big wave. I did it! With my heart
beating wildly, I ran toward the stormy sea, chanting that
it's just a dream. I dove in headfirst. For a fearful moment
I felt water in my lungs, but then began to enjoy the
sensation of bobbing about in the powerful currents and waves
... after several (very pleasant) minutes of this, I washed
up on shore.

I had one other lucid dream about facing the wave and
enjoying being underwater. Since then, I have had no more
nightmares of tidal waves. (L.G., San Francisco,
California)

When thinking about a nightmare becomes so painful that we
avoid it, it is not surprising that it recurs. However, even
the most terrible images become less frightening when we
examine them. I believe Saint-Denys sheds light on the
mechanism of recurrent nightmares, in the following comment
on his living gargoyle dream, quoted earlier in this chapter:

I don't know the origin of the dream. Probably some
pathological cause brought it on the first time; but
afterwards, when it was repeated on several occasions in the
space of six weeks, it was clearly brought back solely by the
impressions it had made on me and by my instinctive fear of
seeing it again. If I happened, when dreaming, to find myself
in a closed room, the memory of this horrible dream was
immediately revived; I would glance towards the door, the
thought of what I was afraid of seeing was enough to produce
the sudden appearance of the same terrors, in the same form
as before. [20]

I believe nightmares become recurrent by the following
process: in the first place, the dreamer awakens from a
nightmare in a state of intense anxiety and fear; naturally,
he or she hopes that it will never happen again. The wish to
avoid at all costs the events of the nightmare insures that
they will be remembered. Later, something in the person's
waking life associated with the original dream causes the
person to dream about a situation similar to the original
nightmare. The dreamer recognizes, perhaps unconsciously, the
similarity, and thus expects the same thing to happen. Thus,
expectation causes the dream to follow the first plot, and
the more the dream recurs, the more likely it is to recur in
the same form. Looking at recurrent nightmares in this way
suggests a simple treatment: the dreamer can imagine a new
conclusion for the dream to weaken the expectation that it
has only one possible outcome.

Veteran dreamworker Strephon Kaplan-Williams describes a
technique for re-dreaming the end of a nightmare; he calls it
"dream re-entry." The technique can be practiced with any
dream that you feel unsatisfied with the outcome of, but it
seems especially apt for recurrent nightmares, in which you
are stuck time after time with the same set of disturbing
events.

Dream re-entry is practiced in the waking state. Dreamworkers
begin by selecting dreams to relive, and then come up with
alternative ways of acting in the dreams to influence the
progression of the events towards more favorable or useful
outcomes. Then they relive the dream in imagination, with the
new action. They continue to visualize being in the dream
until they see the result of their alternative behavior.
Williams offers an example of dream re-entry from his own
experience. He had dreamt: "I am in this house and there is
something scary to confront. I don't want to do it and am all
alone. I'm quite afraid. I wake up." He resolves to re-enter
the dream and face the fear. In this case, he actually fell
asleep as he was practicing the re-entry process, which added
to the intensity of his experience:

This time I make myself enter the bathroom where the source
of my fears seems to be. I am so afraid, so afraid that the
flow of images stops. But through sheer will I make myself
enter the bathroom ready for anything. I think of taking my
machete and thrashing around with it if I am attacked. But I
decide against this because I want to confront my fear by
willing myself to stay with the situation no matter what....
I am ready to face that which could overwhelm me and exist
with it rather than try to defeat it.

...When I do [enter the bathroom], there seems to be a
hulking luminescent figure there. It does not attack me but
changes into a dwarf-like figure, long arms, roundish head,
like Yoda. We face each other. I have stayed with the
situation. No attack comes. My fear goes away when I
experience what is there behind the door, and has been there
so many years going back to childhood. What has been there
behind every door and scary place is fear itself and my
inability to fully deal with it. [21]

Several years ago, I used a similar approach with someone
suffering from recurrent nightmares. A man telephoned me
asking for help. He feared going to sleep, because he might
have "that terrible dream" again. In his dream, he told me,
he would find himself in a room in which the walls were
closing in threatening to crush him. He would desperately try
to open the door, which would always be locked.

I asked him to imagine he was back in the dream, knowing it
was a dream. What else could he do? At first he was unable to
think of anything else that could possibly happen, so I
modeled what I was asking him to do. I imagined I was in the
same dream and I visualized the walls closing in. However,
the moment I found the door locked, it occurred to me to
reach into my pocket where I found the key, with which I
unlocked the door and walked out. I recounted my imaginal
solution and asked him to try again. He imagined the dream
again—this time he looked around the room and noticed that
there was no ceiling and climbed out.

I suggested to him that if this dream should ever recur, he
could recognize it as a dream, and remember his solution. I
asked him to call me if the dream came back, but he never
did. Unfortunately, we cannot be sure about what happened.
But, I think that having found some way to cope with that
particular (dream) situation, he had no need to dream about
it again because he no longer feared it. As I have
hypothesized elsewhere, we dream about what we expect to
happen, both what we fear and what we hope for. I believe
that the approach I have outlined can provide the basis for
an effective treatment for recurrent nightmares, and look
forward to it being tested clinically.

Some evidence has appeared in psychotherapy literature
indicating that rehearsal (i.e., re-dreaming) can help people
overcome recurrent nightmares. Geer and Silverman
successfully treated an otherwise normal patient who suffered
for fifteen years from a recurrent nightmare with five
sessions of relaxation followed by seven sessions of mentally
re-experiencing the nightmare (rehearsal). [22] The frequency
of nightmares decreased only after the third rehearsal
session, when the patient was instructed to say to himself
"It's just a dream." After the sixth rehearsal session,
several weeks later, the nightmare disappeared. Marks
described a case in which a recurrent nightmare of fourteen
years' duration disappeared after the patient relived the
dream three times while awake and then wrote three accounts
of the nightmare with triumphant endings. [23] Bishay treated
seven cases of nightmares with simple rehearsal of the
nightmare and/or rehearsal with an altered ending. [24] A
one-year follow-up of five patients in the latter study
showed complete relief from nightmares in the four patients
who successfully imagined masterful endings, and marked
improvement in a patient who was only able to imagine a
neutral outcome.

Rehearsal re-dreaming is done while awake. However, a similar
technique can be practiced during the recurrent nightmare, if
the dreamer is lucid. Instead of imagining how the dream
might turn out if the dreamer tried something new, while
lucid the dreamer can try the alternative action right there
in the nightmare. The resultant resolution should be all the
more empowering, because of the enhanced reality of the dream
experience. Practicing altering the course of recurrent
nightmares both in waking and dreaming may be even more
effective. Sometimes, the waking re-dreaming exercise is
enough to resolve the problem created in the dream so that it
never recurs again. However, if the dream does occur again,
then the dreamer should be prepared to become lucid and
consciously face the problem. The exercise below incorporates
both re-entry techniques.

1. Recall and record the recurrent nightmare.
If you have had a particular nightmare more than once, recall
it in as much detail as you can, and write it down. Examine
it for points where you could influence the turn of events by
doing something differently.

2. Choose a re-entry point and new action.
Choose a specific part of the dream to change, and a specific
new action that you would like to try at that point to alter
the course of the dream. Also select the most relevant point
before the trouble-spot at which to re-enter the dream. (If
it is a long dream, you may wish to begin at the part that
immediately precedes the unpleasant events).

3. Relax completely.
Find a time and place where you can be alone and
uninterrupted for between ten and twenty minutes. In a
comfortable position, close your eyes and relax as described
in EXERCISE: PROGRESSIVE RELAXATION.

4. Re-dream the nightmare, seeking resolution.
Beginning at the entry point you chose in Step 2, imagine you
are back in the dream. Visualize the dream happening as it
did before until you reach the part at which you have chosen
to try a new behavior. See yourself doing the new action, and
then continue imagining the dream until you discover what
effect your alteration has on its outcome.

5. Evaluate your re-dreamed resolution.
When the imagined dream has ended, open your eyes. Write down
what happened as if it were a normal dream report. Note how
you feel about the new dream resolution. If you are not
satisfied, and still feel uncomfortable about the dream, try
the exercise again with a new alternative action. Possibly,
achieving a comfortable resolution with the waking exercise
will be enough to stop the recurrence of the nightmare.

6. If the dream recurs, follow your re-dreamed plan of
action.
If the dream occurs again, do in the dream what you
visualized during waking re-entry. Remember that the dream
cannot harm you and be firmly resolved to carry through with
your new behavior.

Children's Nightmares

I learned as a child of five or six to control nightmares.
For example, a dinosaur was chasing me, so I inserted a can
of spinach into the plot, and upon eating it gained Popeye's
strength and "vanquished" my foe. (V.B., Roanoke, Virginia)

I had this lucid dream when I was ten years old: Feeling
like a frightened victim, I am high in a stone tower with my
younger sister Diane. A witch has tied us up and is about to
stuff us into gunny sacks and throw us out the window to
drown in the water far below. My sister is crying and near
hysteria. Suddenly my panic turns to lightness and wonder. I
laugh. "Diane! This is only a dream! My dream! Let her throw
us out the window because I can make us do anything we want!"
The witch is now background material, no longer the imposing
"control." We laugh as we fall through the air, gunny sacks
melting away. The warm, friendly water gently supports us to
the shore where we run, giggling, in the grass. For days
after that dream I felt an inner strength, a sense that fear
is now what I'd let it be up to that point. (B.H.,
Sebastapol, California)

As a child I participated in and controlled many of my own
dreams. My own lucid dreaming started when I was about nine
or ten years old. One night I had a dream in which I was
being chased by an evil giant. In the dream I suddenly
remembered my parents telling me there are no such things as
monsters. It was then that I realized I must be dreaming. In
the dream I stopped running, turned around and let the giant
pick me up. The outcome of the dream was good and I awoke
with a pleasant and confident feeling. Over the next two
years I developed more skill at lucid dreaming, so much so
that bedtime became exciting because of this new world I had
discovered where anything was possible and I was the Boss.
(R.M., Toronto, Canada)

Many people have reported discovering lucid dreaming as a
means of coping with childhood nightmares, as in the cases
above. Children tend to have more nightmares than adults, but
fortunately, they appear to have little difficulty putting
into practice the idea of facing their fears with lucid
dreaming.

In her book Studies in Dreams published in 1921, Mary Arnold-Forster mentioned having helped children overcome nightmares
with lucidity, [25] and I can relate a similar experience
myself. Once, when I was making long-distance small-talk with
my niece, I asked her about her dreams. Madeleina, then seven
years old, burst out with the description of a fearful
nightmare. She had dreamt that she had gone swimming, as she
often did, in the local reservoir. But this time, she had
been threatened and terrified by a shark. I sympathized with
her fear and added, matter-of-factly, "but of course you know
there aren't really any sharks in Colorado." She replied, "Of
course not!" So, I continued: "Well, since you know there
aren't really any sharks where you swim, if you ever see one
there again, it would be because you were dreaming. And, of
course, a dream shark can't really do you any harm. It is
only frightening if you don't know that it's a dream. But
once you know you're dreaming, you can do whatever you like—you could even make friends with the dream shark, if you
wanted to! Why not give it a try?" Madeleina seemed
intrigued. A week later, she telephoned to proudly announce,
"Do you know what I did? I rode on the back of the shark!"

Whether or not this approach to children's nightmares always
produces such impressive results we do not yet know, but it
is certainly worth exploring. If you are a parent with
children suffering from nightmares, you should first make
sure that they know what a dream is and then tell them about
lucid dreaming. For more information on children's nightmares
and how to treat them, see Garfield's excellent book Your Child's Dreams[26]

That lucid dreaming promises to banish one of the terrors of
childhood seems reason enough for all enlightened parents
teaching the method to their children. In addition, an
important bonus of the lucid dreaming approach to children's
nightmares is that it results in an increased sense of
mastery and self-confidence as can be seen in all of the
examples above. Think of the value of discovering that fear
has no more power than you let it have, and that you are the
master.